Gastric sleeve surgery involves removing a large portion of your stomach, and converting the remaining portion of it into the shape of a sleeve. This procedure can help you improve your wellness if you’re overweight and have difficulty losing weight naturally, but for it to work you need to look after your wellbeing, and follow a strict diet.
During the first two days after surgery, liquids are the only things on the menu. This means drinks such as herbal tea, flat soft drinks and sugar-free fruit juices, as well as beef or chicken broth, sugar-free gelatine and sugar-free ice lollies. However, for at least three weeks after your surgery, you should eliminate citrus juices and coffee from your diet as these beverages can irritate your stomach. Also, remember to consume any liquids slowly during this time.
After this, and until the end of week two, you’ll still be following a liquid diet but with the added bonuses of skimmed milk, soya milk, sugar-free instant jelly, light, plain-flavoured yoghurt and sugar-free pudding. You will also be required to drink protein shakes at this stage of your post-surgical recovery.
At week three, you’ll be able to start eating pureed foods, or food that has been put through a strainer or processed in a blender. If you’re confused about what you can have, go with the rule that if you can chew it, you shouldn’t eat it. If you can’t tolerate pureed foods, you may need to follow a liquid diet for a few days. During this phase, there are many foods you can consume, including pureed vegetables, low-fat cream soup, blended fish, mashed winter squash and blended eggs, as well as unsweetened fruit juice. It’s also still advisable to drink protein shakes during this phase.
At week nine you’ll be allowed to eat soft foods, meaning things like boneless baked fish, vegetables, canned peaches and scrambled eggs. From weeks nine to 12 you should space your meals four or five hours apart from one another, and still consume your protein shakes between your meals. After that, at four months or so, you can gradually ease into eating a normal diet again. However, remember that you may still have trouble tolerating foods like corn chips, fried foods, seeds, nuts and greasy foods. Above all else, remember to eat slowly and avoid overindulging, and you’ll be seeing successful results in no time.
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